Asiaweek.com | The Hunt for Baby Buddhas

OCTOBER 20, 2000 VOL. 26 NO. 41 | SEARCH ASIAWEEK

The Hunt for Baby Buddhas
Beijing has joined the game
By JULIAN GEARING Shigatse, Tibet

ALSO:
• Struggle for Tibet's Soul: As Tibetan exiles battle for power, Beijing seeks greater control over their homeland
• Interview: What the Dalai Lama sees in Tibet's future
• Interview: Tibetan "traitor" Ngabo Ngawang Jigme

As I follow a group of Tibetans into the crypt of the 9th Panchen Lama at the Tashilunpo Monastery, I spy four large pictures of past and present Panchens. But something isn't quite right. Feigning ignorance, I ask one of the visiting monks: "Who is in the photos?" "That is the 9th Panchen," he replies. "And that is the 10th — but he died mysteriously, maybe poisoned." "What about the two boys?" I ask. "Ahhh . . . he is the 11th," he says, pointing to the picture of a 10-year old. "And he is the 11th," he continues, indicating another child. I respond innocently: "There are two 11th Panchen Lamas?" He grins, a bit embarrassed. "I cannot say more," he whispers before moving off to join the other pilgrims.

In Tibet, even reincarnation is a political game. In this famous — and closely watched — monastery in Tibet's second city, the faces of two boys hang on the wall. But which is the real reincarnation of the Panchen Lama — the one recognized by Beijing, and cosseted and molded there? Or the other, named by the Dalai Lama but kept under house arrest by China? Whatever the explanations for links with lives past, the reincarnation of important Tibetan lamas is tied up with present-day politics and the struggle over the future of the disputed land. Setting its atheist ideology aside, Beijing has joined the reincarnation game — in the hope that its chosen lamas will be loyal to Chinese rule. "It is naive to consider the reincarnation system to be purely religious," says Matthew Kapstein, an American author and academic who has studied Tibetan practices. "It has always had powerful political and economic dimensions." And when it impinges on the Dalai Lama's successor, the stakes are enormous.

From exile, the 14th Dalai Lama is both the symbol of the Tibetan people — and anathema to Beijing. He has already said he will be reborn outside Tibet, which would presumably make his successor harder for China to control. But finding the next Dalai Lama will not be so difficult, insists Thupten Ngodub, 43, known as the Nechung Oracle. As Tibet's state seer, he will perform the task. "We have a tradition of how to do that," he told Asiaweek. Like his predecessor, who recognized the present Dalai Lama, he will go into a trance. Signs will then emerge indicating the right child. The job may be easier if the search is, as the Dalai Lama wants, narrowed to the exile community. Before, seekers had to range over all of remote northwestern China.

But in Tibetan Buddhism reincarnation is not just the preserve of the high and mighty. Thousands of lesser spiritual leaders with special gifts as teachers purportedly choose to be reborn to help all living beings realize enlightenment. Some have popped up in the West. Hollywood action star Steven Seagal stepped into a new role three years ago: the reincarnation of Chungdrag Dorje, a Tibetan lama. A hairdresser named Catherine Burroughs was recognized as Jetsunma Ahkon Lama, a 17th-century saint. And some nomads in eastern Tibet believe U.S. President Bill Clinton is the reincarnation of a revered tulku, Gamyat Shepa. Such suppositions often invite skepticism and scorn, especially among Westerners. Seagal was accused of "buying" his title; Catherine Burroughs was dubbed the "Buddha from Brooklyn."

Even so, a handful of Western psychiatrists, risking the ridicule of their peers, has been researching people who claim memories of past lives. Eighty-year-old Ian Stevenson, who teaches psychiatry at the University of Virginia, has collected thousands of case studies. He has cross-referenced his subjects' stories with remembered people whom they could not have known in their present lives.

Most serious scientists ignore Stevenson, though he has won over some skeptics. Washington Post editor Tom Shroeder spent a year with him researching a book titled Old Souls, The Scientific Evidence for Past Lives. Shroeder is impressed that Stevenson makes no extravagant claims about previous lives. He doesn't even insist that reincarnation exists. Instead, he just reports his subjects' "amazingly mundane" recollections of ordinary life.

The hunt for reincarnations is the very definition of "inexact science." "There may be a religious aspect to it," says Tibet scholar Kapstein. "But in the end, things probably don't work out much worse than most forms of succession in human affairs." The Dalai Lama insists that the search for his successor will be carried out correctly. But with the Chinese government in on the hunt, he knows the final result may not be perfect.

Back to the top
Write to Asiaweek at mail@web.asiaweek.com


Back to the top		© 2000 Asiaweek. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines.